This website provides information on how Atos runs its business,
extracts from the Contract between the DWP and Atos including the
MEDICAL CONDITIONS
that mean a face to face medical assessment is not always necessary,
ASSESSMENTS AND POINTS,
the breaches of Contract that occurred in my case, my unsound medical report
and the correspondence showing how difficult it is to obtain justice or advice.

Press Articles

The press has published many articles critical of the DWP, ESA,
Atos Healthcare medical assessments, Unum and McKinsey.
It is not surprising as the McKinsey / Unum "non-medical"
approach to the assessment of medical conditions has been implemented;
see Unum Business
(dwpatosbusinessunum.html).
Atos Origin has a well documented history of failures;
see Atos Healthcare Business
(dwpatosbusiness.html).
The Welfare Reform Act introduced Employment Support Allowance (ESA).
The DWP awarded the Contract to carry out medical assessments to Atos Origin.

Press Articles in 2007

25 July 2007 - Atos fails to meet contract

Government climbs down on private NHS clinics.

... The Department of Health said it became clear that Atos Origin,
a private firm supplying the NHS with diagnostic services in north-west
and south-west England, was "not in a position to meet" the terms of its contract....

Press Articles in 2008

James Purnell's reforms of incapacity benefit are inspired by a US company with
vested interests and a murky record. Now, that's really sick

The work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, announced that all incapacity
benefit claimants will face the new work capability assessment...

...In fact, welfare reform has been for some time a key battleground to outflank
Cameron, by playing tough to the tabloids. In the process, the welfare state
is being transformed by marketisation...

...In fact, the origin of active welfare - the idea that the poor are the cause
of their own poverty because they fail to take advantage of the opportunities
"available" to them - lies in the American right.
For those who play by the rules, says Purnell, there is a world of opportunity.
But for those who don't, "there will be clear consequences from their behaviour"...

...Unum has built up its influence in Britain...
This is the company that has played a leading role in shaping welfare reform
in Britain. It has promoted the ideas behind the new work capability assessment.
The more stringent the assessment, the more people fail it or fear failing it,
and so the larger the potential market in private disability insurance.
Fifty per cent of IB appeals against the refusal of claims found in favour of the claimant.
In eighty per cent of these, the problem was poor assessment of mental health problems.

Blame the unemployed for unemployment. This is the basic principle behind
New Labour's proposals to reform welfare benefits.
Failure to find employment is no longer the result of labour market conditions
or health barriers to work, but rather a motivational failure on the
part of the unemployed.

A new look at welfare.
It's time to replace our market-driven approach to welfare with a return to
universality, equality and good living...
The 1834 Poor Law Reform Act divided the poor into helpless paupers to be confined
to the workhouse, and free labourers who must earn their living by working for a wage.

Jobless to be offered 'talking treatment' to help put Britain back to work.
Jobcentres will bypass doctors to refer claimants for cognitive behaviour
therapy at up to 300 centres....
The government's adviser on these issues, Lord Layard, believes that a short course
of CBT delivered by a therapist with only basic training is all that is required
to cure a substantial proportion of those out of work because of depression
or mental health problems.

by Allegra Stratton, The Guardian Political Correspondent, 4 December 2009.

'Tis the season ... Christmas communication from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The season of goodwill is again upon us. But even in this festive season,
the Department for Work and Pensions' paranoid view of claimants
as forever on the take, still seems to rule.

Press Articles in 2010

8 February 2010 - Incentives for informers

Benefit informers could be given share of cash saved.
Proposals to encourage people to inform on benefit cheats...
Some critics have claimed that the hotlines reduced social cohesion
and made innocent citizens the victims of deranged neighbours
determined to cause misery.

Disability tests in need of overhaul.
The tough Work Capability Assessment is stopping disabled people get
the support they need for a return to employment.

...Those who feel that they have not been properly assessed can complain
directly to Atos. But very often a poor assessment will lead to an appeal,
a tribunal and delays, as well as extra expense to both the individual
and the taxpayer. Most importantly, of course, every time the test doesn't
work appropriately it can mean someone missing out on the support that
they need to find work, and the financial support that they need
because of their impairment...

The real benefit cheats? The Stasi ranks of Hard Labour.
The supergrass wheeze is just another example of coarse, wilfully ignorant
rabble-rousing from the top ranks of government.
I'd love to see the benefit cheat advertisements remodelled,
to target public sector expenses fraud.

Iain Duncan Smith displays a worrying ignorance about welfare.
As a former Jobcentre Plus worker I am far better informed than the minister
about our benefits system.

...In a BBC interview he described ESA as a "disability benefit" for those
with the potential to work. This is highly inaccurate.
It is a benefit intended for those suffering short-term illnesses
as well as long-term disabilities, and is intended as a replacement
for incapacity benefit, not to supplement it....

...A major factor behind long-term unemployment is that the slender
rewards of taking poorly paid work aren't compensated for by the additional
stress involved in taking some of the worst jobs in society....

...With this in mind, Iain Duncan Smith's promise to re-incentivise work has sinister
implications. The easiest and cheapest way to do this is to slash benefits to a
level where they can't sustain a tolerable lifestyle.
This is what I suspect is planned, despite all his talk of reform.

Cutting disability benefits is not 'fair'. Osborne's softening-up process worked
- but cutting disability allowance without improving the social
care system is wrong

...The squeeze on people claiming disability living allowance is predicted
to save the government £1.4bn by 2015. This is the weekly allowance that
can be claimed by people so physically or mentally disabled they cannot
wash or dress themselves; can't eat unaided or use the toilet independently.
It helps them pay for a helper....

Why should I again prove my disability to satisfy George Osborne?
The disability living allowance treats us as ordinary people with some
extra needs. Spare me talk of a focus on 'genuine' cases

...DLA helps claimants by enabling us to meet the extra costs of our
disabilities, enabling people to do what would otherwise be too costly. These
extra costs can range from wheelchairs, other care equipment, care services,
transport, and dietary needs, to computers and other assistive technology,
to more individual needs and unexpected expenses incurred as the result of
disability. Many DLA claimants use the benefit to enable them to work and
many more want to do so but are hampered by employer attitudes
and social negativity....

Welfare crackdown begins with drive to reduce incapacity benefit claims.
Coalition's plans include taking people off higher rate of benefits
if tests reveal they are fit to do some work

Ministers are to signal a tougher approach to incapacity benefit this
week as the next stage of its welfare reforms, by reducing the benefit levels
of those tested if they are found capable of doing some work...

Disabled people are not scroungers. It's time the government stopped using
incapacity benefits as a political football - those who got us into
this mess should pay

...George Osborne is talking tough on incapacity benefits and suggesting
that many recipients are fraudulent. There is no evidence to support this,
other than a few, extreme anecdotal cases. He claims he will support the
long-term sick and most vulnerable, but let's look at it realistically...

Press Articles in 2011

17 January 2011 - "Poorest families' standard of living 'will continue to fall'"

About seven million of Britain's poorest people will see their spending power fall by a
tenth over the next decade because the prices of essentials such as food, fuel and
clothing are rising much faster than inflation, according to new research.

Fighting against benefit cuts puts a focus on one's disability -
which is just what the DLA helps one escape

...DLA assists you in feeling less disabled, allowing you to put yourself
back in that neutral position of having an everyday existence that barely focuses
on disability - to simply be just another person...."

The aim is for a simpler, cheaper system that will save £18bn in four years.
But the unseemly rush for savings has casualties, such as the concept that
national insurance is an insurance policy

Iain Duncan Smith's radical welfare bill, perhaps the most significant reshaping
of the welfare state in 60 years, aims to simplify the system of subsidies that
covers everything from income support to housing benefit to sickness payments.

...One of the most significant but little-heralded changes is that the welfare state
should no longer be regarded as a piggy bank. In the past the public were told that
by paying into national insurance, they would be guaranteed benefits should they
fall on hard times.

Instead, the government will limit its new "employment and support allowance" to a year...

23 February 2011 -
Coalition under fire for changes to disability benefits

The government's own advisers have criticised its planned overhaul of the
disability living allowance

The government's plans to overhaul disability benefits have come under fire from
its own official advisory body.

The statutory social security advisory committee is questioning the motives for the
proposed replacement of disability living allowance (DLA), paid to almost 3 million
people to help cover extra costs arising from their condition.

It is also opposing outright the separate move to withdraw DLA entitlement from people
living in care homes who receive it to help with the costs of transport.

Liam Byrne to outline plans aiming to tackle irresponsibility in UK boardrooms and
among those seeking welfare payments

...Byrne will sketch out long-term plans to reorder the whole contributory
principle at the heart of welfare, the idea that healthy citizens in work pay into
the state in return for a payout should they become unemployed or sick...

Commons committee to publish critical report on Atos, which determines whether
people are eligible for sickness benefits

People who are fit and healthy are unlikely to have heard of the company Atos.
But anyone who has had to apply for sickness benefits may find that the name
triggers – according to one MP – a sense of "fear and loathing"...

25 July 2011 - A contract to terrify 1.5m people on incapacity benefit

A French company (Atos Origin) is being paid millions to harass incapacity benefit claimants
with the threat of being made destitute

...you find a mind-boggling handful of paragraphs about the company's "Logic
Integrated Medical Assessment" (or Lima) computer system, which has often seemed to
reduce complex cases to the stuff of binary idiocy....

...The results of all this are obvious enough.
Thousands of people have been fallaciously deemed fit for work.
...

Righteous anger by disabled people over Atos incompetence in assessing benefit claims
should also be directed at the government

Atos is a French IT company engaged by the government to run the Department for Work
and Pensions (DWP) contract to assess claimants for sickness and disability benefits.
It is also the target of blame and fury by many sick and/or disabled people suffering
at the hands of an inhumane system.

Exactly what a French IT company would know about sickness, disability, welfare benefits
and the tough job of administering such claims might be the first question to spring to
mind, but the important questions here are not related to competence. The key issue is
whether Atos is responsible for a situation causing so much distress and pain to genuinely
sick and disabled people.
And who benefits by Atos being seen as responsible for this situation?

Twelve medics at the disability assessment centre are under investigation by the GMC over
allegations of improper conduct

Twelve doctors employed by the firm that is paid £100m a year to assess people
claiming disability benefit are under investigation by the General Medical Council over
allegations of improper conduct. The doctors, who work for Atos Healthcare, a
French-owned company recently criticised by MPs for its practices, face being struck off
if they are found not to have put the care of patients first.

The Observer has found that seven of the doctors have been under investigation for more
than seven months. The other five were placed under investigation this year following
complaints about their conduct....

Work and pensions minister Steve Webb accepts reform is necessary for Atos-approved
employment support allowance

Controversial assessments of disabled people that have led to many losing their
state benefits will be reformed, said Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions
minister.

He accepted there was genuine anger about how claimants of employment support allowance
(ESA) had been treated. The "vast majority" of claimants for ESA, which has replaced
incapacity benefit, are deemed fit for work by Atos, the French company which is paid
£100m a year to assess claimants.

Yet four out of 10 of those who appeal against the decision by Atos are successful,
a process that costs the taxpayer £50m a year. Last month Atos, whose staff assess
around 11,000 benefit claimants a week, was savaged by the cross-party work and pensions
select committee after it found that many people had "not received the level of service
from Atos which they can reasonably expect"....

20 November 2011 - The welfare state: the social glue that binds us must be preserved

At different times in our life cycle most of us may experience a period of vulnerability
and need to draw on the 'welfare pot'.

In an open letter published in the Observer today, 18 bishops ask for amendments to the
Welfare Reform Bill now going through Parliament. The letter says that as a result of the
proposed cap on benefits, an estimated 210,000 children may be pushed into "severe poverty"
and another 80,000 made homeless.

...According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a couple who both work full time with two
children need to earn 24% more this year than last because of the impact of rising food
and fuel prices, the freezing of child benefit and the reduction in the reimbursement for
childcare - all measures which also hit the majority of those on benefits even more savagely...

4 December 2011 - The demonisation of the disabled is a chilling sign of the times

There is a climate of hostility towards people for whom life is already difficult and it is
being fostered by politicians and journalists.

...Many emanate from the Department for Work and Pensions, which has twisted facts,
manipulated statistics and distorted data to win support for its drive to cut costs and
crack down on benefit fraud. This cascade of spurious claims and scandalously spun stories
ends up demonising the disabled. It does no credit to Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary of
state, who proclaims himself a compassionate Conservative. Ministers say they cannot be
blamed for the actions of the media, but they know how the game is played...

Employment minister Chris Grayling says he is confident glitches in the system used to decide
who is fit to work have been fixed. Two years after the new 'work capability test' was
introduced, what's it like for those who go through the assessment?...

18 January 2012 -
"I left the Conservative party over its attacks on disabled people"

Plans to replace disability living allowance amount to an assault on disabled people's
independence and equality

Having been a member of the Conservative party since 1992 and a councillor from 2006,
I decided to relinquish both of those positions in 2011. A big decision but one that
I decided to make because of the government's endless attacks on disabled people
and their right to independence and full equality.

Rising public resentment blamed on government focus on alleged 'scrounger' fraud
and inflammatory media coverage

The government's focus on alleged fraud and overclaiming to justify cuts in
disability benefits has caused an increase in resentment and abuse directed
at disabled people, as they find themselves being labelled as scroungers,
six of the country's biggest disability groups have warned.

16 February 2012 -
Disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefit

Mental health groups and charities attack plans drawn up by Department for Work and Pensions

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an
unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up
by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mental health professionals and charities have said they fear those deemed fit
to undertake limited amounts of work under a controversial assessment process
could suffer further harm to their health if the plans go ahead.

Services are already being pulled in an unannounced, piecemeal way. If the bill passes,
the health secretary won't be accountable

Andrew Lansley and his colleagues assure us that under their plans to privatise the NHS,
"services will still be free at the point of use". But they fail to add a key proviso:
provided the services are still available. In reality, a growing list of services won't
be available, and so won't be free.

Of course, some services that the NHS originally provided, such as long-term care for
frail older people, have long been officially withdrawn; and others, like prescriptions
and dentistry, are still provided but subject to charges. Under the health and social
care bill there will be further contraction of what is provided free on the NHS.
Local clinical commissioning groups, not the secretary of state, will decide what
services it is "reasonable" to provide out of the budgets they are given, and the
package will gradually contract.

This process has already begun under the pressure of the so-called productivity savings
recommended by McKinsey.
NHS services are being withdrawn in an unannounced, piecemeal and unaccountable way.

Lib Dems have decency in our DNA. From the NHS to Trident, our presence in the
coalition has stymied the Tories

...As a party in government we've fought like tigers to win tax cuts for the poor,
to protect our NHS, to green our economy, to kick Trident into the long grass,
to remain at the heart of Europe and to reform our democracy...

...just look to the health bill. With 140 amendments, most of which came from the Lib Dems,
it is no longer the bill Lansley dreamed of...

Democracy itself is being undermined by publicly funded agencies crawling with conflicts
of interest and devoid of scrutiny

...Blair and Brown began the abuses that the coalition government is refining: purging
countervailing voices from public bodies and stuffing them
with the representatives of business...

...I'll begin with the government's "reform" of the National Health Service.
The body charged with breaking an integrated, co-ordinated system into warring
kingdoms whose commercial interests discourage collaboration is called Monitor.
Its role will be to enforce competition, ensuring that "any qualified provider"
can enter the NHS...

...The current government has made two new appointments to Monitor's board,
including the chair, who is also the body's chief executive.
Both were previously senior partners at the consultancy company McKinsey.
Of the six members of Monitor's senior management team, two previously worked
for McKinsey (including the chief executive) and two at a similar company, KPMG...

...board members and executives at Monitor have been lavishly entertained
by McKinsey, which, like KPMG, is picking up fat contracts from NHS reforms...

...Both McKinsey and KPMG have been major beneficiaries of previous
privatisations or private finance schemes...

15 March 2012 -
Third of incapacity benefit claimants ruled fit to work

Government claims figure vindicates policy - while charities say it is unfit for
purpose and will cost millions in appeals

More than a third of people who were claiming the old incapacity benefit have been
told they are ineligible for the new benefit, employment and support allowance
– a figure hailed by the government as justification for the decision to reassess
all claimants, and by campaigners as evidence that the new system is unreasonably harsh.

...Around 38% of all tribunal appeals are overturned in the claimant's favour,
and the benefit is subsequently granted. If a claimant is supported in their appeal
by someone from a welfare rights group, such as Citizens Advice, there is a much
higher success rate for appeals, around 68%...

A computer questionnaire now helps determine who is fit for work and who is eligible
for benefits. But it is causing misery, with thousands of unwell people locked in a
chaotic system of appeals

How sick or disabled do you need to be to qualify for state support? Is it enough
to be blind or do you also need to be deaf? Is it enough to have been so seriously
injured in a car accident that you can no longer walk without extreme pain, or
do you have to be bed-bound?

...Atos has also been blamed for the high level of inaccuracies in the decisions,
accused by one MP of "disastrous delivery" of the tests. Protesters have repeatedly
mounted demonstrations outside their London offices, waving banners that declare
"Atos doesn't give a toss" and "Atos kills!" – a reference to the small but growing
number of claimants who have killed themselves after finding that their benefits
have been removed. In a select committee report last year, MPs questioned whether
as "a private company, you are driven by a profit motive", incentivised "to get
the assessments done, but not necessarily to get the assessments right"...

Disability living allowance is being replaced with personal independence payment
assessments, and private companies are queueing up to cash in

The Department for Work and Pensions has just announced the 10 private companies on
the shortlist to deliver the personal independence payment (PIP) assessments...

...Take Atos, for example, the French multinational, responsible for handling the
deeply flawed work capability assessments. Despite huge levels of criticism from
individuals and charities that the test is not "fit for purpose", widespread
inaccuracies in the assessment process (40% of appeals against Atos decisions
are successful), and extensive anecdotal reports of farcical levels of incompetence
on the part of the assessors, the DWP has shortlisted Atos for the contract to
deliver PIP assessments in every available region.

And then there's the outsourcing giant, Serco, excluded from the Norwegian
government's investment portfolio because of its involvement in nuclear arms.
Serco is shortlisted by the British government to provide "independent" assessments
of disabled people. This is a new avenue for Serco, which has thus far made money
from, among other things, detention centres (Yarl's Wood, for example, where there
has been outrage over the treatment of children) and prisons...